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Arrow Award

iHEA’s Kenneth J. Arrow Award was created to recognize excellence in the field of health economics with the Award presented to the author(s) of the paper judged to be the best paper published in health economics in English in the award year. The Award was set up in honor of Kenneth Arrow and in recognition of the influence of his seminal paper from 1963 “Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care”. Professor Arrow was involved in the creation of the Award and he presented the inaugural prize in 1993.

The Award is made every year. Each year the Award committee consider a short-list of up to ten papers, with each paper evaluated by all of the committee members in terms of importance and originality of contribution, appropriateness and innovation in methodology and clarity of presentation.

The winner is presented with a plaque at the iHEA congress when held in the same year as the award, or at a special reception at the AEA conference in years when there is no iHEA congress.

The 26th Arrow Award for the best paper in health economics is awarded to Marika Cabral for her paper “Claim Timing and Ex Post Adverse Selection” Review of Economic Studies 84(1): 1-44, January 2017.

The Arrow Award Committee is proud to acknowledge the author of this innovative and policy-relevant paper which uses detailed U.S. dental claims data from a large multinational manufacturing company to examine the effect of strategic treatment delays – a source of ex postadverse selection – on insurance enrollment and consumer welfare. Reduced-form estimates indicate the importance of strategic treatment delays and structural estimates are used to analyze the effects of this strategic behavior. Approximately 40% of individuals are estimated to strategically delay claims from one year to the next, when they have incentives to do so. The resulting ex postadverse selection is associated with 61% lower insurance enrolment and 15% lower per capita consumer welfare than in an equilibrium with only traditional (ex ante) adverse selection. Reducing the frequency of open enrolment periods could substantially improve welfare and ex post adverse selection is one reason why dental coverage is relatively rare in the U.S., does not cover the largest risks and often limits coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Marika Cabral, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). She obtained her Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2011 and she obtained her B.A. in economics and applied mathematics from the University of California San Diego in 2006. Her research covers a range of topics in health economics and public finance. Much of her recent research focuses on understanding the role of asymmetric information and the impact of government intervention in health (and health-related) insurance markets.

Committee Membership 2018

Membership of the Arrow Award Committee is refreshed each year and members can serve for up to two three-year terms.

Chair: Christopher Ruhm, University of Virginia, USACo-Chair: Luigi Siciliani, University of York, UK

Kenneth Chay and Michael Greenstone. 2003. The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(3):1121-1167.

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The International Health Economics Association was formed to increase communication among health economists, foster a higher standard of debate in the application of economics to health and health care systems, and assist young researchers at the start of their careers.